Sunday, January 15, 2017

The Synagogues Are Burning Again in Germany

There is shocking news this week from Germany. Three Palestinian
Muslims who torched a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany have been given
suspended sentences because their actions allegedly represented a
justified criticism of Israel. A regional court has upheld
the decision of a lower court, also agreeing that the actions of these
Muslim men were not antisemitic. And to think that this happened in
Germany, a nation that still bears the shame of the Holocaust.
According to many historians, the Holocaust began on the evening of
Nov. 9, 1938, known today as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.
On that fateful night, the Nazis set Jewish synagogues on fire and
vandalized Jewish businesses, all while the public stood by and did
nothing. This sent a message to the Nazi leaders: We will not stop your
attacks on our Jewish neighbors and friends. You have a free hand.Now, Muslims torch a synagogue and the courts look on and yawn. What
message does this send to the Muslim world, especially to Muslims living
in Germany? And what message does this send to German Jews, especially
considering that, “The original synagogue in Wuppertal was burned by
Germans during the Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938.” This is absolutely
chilling.
A 2013 survey
revealed that 1 in 4 European Jews was afraid to wear a yarmulke (or
kippah), the head-covering worn by religious Jews. In 2015, it was reported
that the Central Council of Jews in Germany warned religious Jews not
to wear a kippah for fear of their safety. And in 2016, in Berlin, “Unknown perpetrators kicked and beat a 21-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah after slurring him with anti-Semitic insults.”
This represents a dangerous, unnerving trend, and the regional
court’s decision to uphold the preposterous ruling of the lower court
certainly sends a dangerous signal.
Given the efforts that Germany makes to distance itself from the
Holocaust — including making it a crime to deny the Holocaust — one
would think that if there was any act that would be promptly condemned
by the German courts, it would be setting a synagogue on fire. Yet a
synagogue that was originally burned by the Nazis in 1938 is torched by
Muslims in 2014, and two courts say, “Not a big deal. We understand your
frustration.”
With good reason Robert Spencer exclaimed,
“Meet the new Germany, same as the old Germany. This ruling is the
apotheosis of Islamopandering. Would a German court say that the
attempted torching of a mosque was a justified criticism of jihad terror
attacks? Of course not. Nor should it. But this ruling shows how
desperate German authorities are to appease their rapidly growing and
increasingly aggressive Muslim population.”
According to the first court’s ruling
in 2015, the Palestinian attackers “wanted to draw ‘attention to the
Gaza conflict’ with Israel. Moreover, “The court deemed the attack not
to be motivated by antisemitism.” What kind of drivel is this?
These Muslims did not attack the Israeli embassy in Germany, which,
in theory, could have served as an illegal protest of Israeli policies —
in this case, Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists — without raising the
charge of antisemitism. But they didn’t torch the embassy, nor did they
specifically target Israelis, which, again, while being ugly and
illegal, could have theoretically been directed as Israel in particular
rather than at Jews in general.
But these Palestinian men attacked a Jewish synagogue in Wuppertal,
thereby holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, and thereby
engaging in a blatant, antisemitic act. In that same spirit, when Israel
previously waged war on Hamas in 2009, a female Muslim protester at a
demonstration in Fort Lauderdale, FL, cried out, “Go back to the oven. You need a big oven, that’s what you need.”
Yes, those evil Jews deserve to be exterminated, and what Israel does, all Jews do. As Martin Luther King, Jr., reportedly said in 1968, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
While this dictum is not always true, it is quite often true, and in
the case of Palestinian Muslims expressing their frustration with Israel
by throwing Molotov cocktails at a synagogue, it is definitely true.
The lesson of all this is clear: German Jews, along with European
Jews in general, have no business thinking that history cannot repeat
itself. Numerous articles
document the steadily rising tide of antisemitism in Europe, and just
as the handwriting was on the wall in Germany long before 1938, the
handwriting is forming on the wall again. (Consider that the blatantly
antisemitic Nuremburg laws,
which “excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them
from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of ‘German or
related blood’,” among other restrictions, were instituted in 1935.)
This recent court ruling, upholding the earlier court’s decision,
should serve as a wake-up call to all Jews in Germany. It also should
serve as a wake-up call to all people of conscience in Germany,
especially professing Christians. Will you stand idly by, or will you
take a stand with the Jewish people of your nation?
History is watching once again. https://stream.org/synagogues-burning-germany/

2 comments:

We went to Wuppertal late November 2015 and saw the plaque placed in memory of the burning of the synagogue on Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938. My family lived in Wuppertal at that time. We went to Germany for a ceremony to place a stopple stein in memory of our great grandmother who was murdered in a concentration camp. It was the first time our family had returned to Wuppertal. Our parents left Germany late in August 1938. Our grandparents left in the Spring of 1939 after Kristallnacht and went to live in British Mandated Palestine (now Israel once again). I cannot believe that the German courts adjudicated as they did. Throwing a Molotov cocktail at a bush would be arson. Why is it ok to throw one at a building of any kind let alone a building of worship of any faith? Arson is arson and that is against the law EVERYWHERE. I am very disappointed with the judicial decision of that court. SM

The Court has authorized "Open Season" on any and all Jews and Jewish institutions in the FRG. This decision is more than disappointing. It is unacceptable and demands a clear response both in the FRG and internationally.